UK Top 40 music chart to include streaming figures for singles

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The UK might be late to the party but it will soon begin taking streaming figures into account for the Top 40 singles chart.

The US and Europe uses streaming figures when rating singles. The UK has used digital sales but ignored streaming so far.

The head of music at Radio 1, George Ergatoudis, has announced its Top 40 singles chart will take into account the number of times tracks are streamed on services like Spotify and YouTube. This new chart will begin in the summer.

Music streaming in the UK has increased by more than 33 per cent in 2013 and now accounts for nearly 10 per cent of music revenues with 7.4 billion songs streamed.

Current issues that are holding back the move include which streams to use and the impact it will have on new and independent artists. Also an issue is deciding how many plays of a video or song equate to a purchase equivalent.

Ergatoudis said merging this data into the Top 40 would be one of the biggest transitional changes in the Official Chart's history.